DSRL REFERENCE

[Miguel Bunster]

Hi,

I got back from a shoot her ein CHile and all well.

I haved used my digital SRL before (on 35mm) on projects where I finished on film and worked great with the lab. Now I did a film test (7218) where I checked the latituted and I felt that the representation of under and over was diferent of what I had on print tests even though the timer on a Da Vinci set the test to look right on the grey card I had as correct exposure and let the rest fall there. Didnt feel or look the same as if 3 stops under was brighter....

ANyway I wanted your opinion on 3 under in 7218. I have done this a lot before on 5218 and still got some detail in 3 under...4 under blacks were getting pretty black....but still some time I got detail up to 5 under....

I attach a picture of a DSRL compnsated for exposure where the blue is 3 under....for me it looks right..even though i will be going to the telecine soon.

I am rating the stock at 320....

 

Ps: On my test I felt DSRL images were slighlty brighter or higher in contrast.

 

Any opnions would be great

Thanks

M

[Miguel Bunster]

no one?

m

[Patrick Neary]

Hi Miguel-

 

I'm not sure if I understand your question completely, but I've never had a problem seeing detail with 3 stops under with the 18 stock.

 

I have a question for you though- When you used your dslr as reference for the color timers on 35mm projects, did you send them a hard-copy print of the shot for reference, or a digital file? Did you alter the digital stills much in photoshop before sending them to the timer, or did you set up your "film look" (for lack of a better term) in the camera's set-up menus?

 

thanks!

 

(by the way, nice looking stills!)

[David Mullen ASC]

My opinion is that soft blue "moonlight" like that is probably best underexposed 2-stops and then darkened in post further to the desired amount. Sure, you get detail at three-stops under, maybe more, but you start to limit your color-correction abilities without getting noise in the image.

[Miguel Bunster]

Patrick,

 

Hi when working 35mm print I have used the camera only and a digital printer. I dont retouch the images becasue I cant do that on aproint. At most color and exposure and generally I will set the picture to put the skin where I want it and the rest fall off. In my case it has worked greatly for two things. First on set people can see a reference of hwo thinigs are gona look (specially with bad video assits) and they feel better and see where I am going. And second for example when I printed at deluxe (which were great with me) one time i didnt send the still and i had this really dark scene which with no notes they printed up and looked like day! so i showed them the still and re-printed the dailies for me and look really close to the still. The same with CFI. And interestingly its really close (highlights are off and some dark dark shadows).

 

David,

 

I was underexposing 3 stops but actually rating 320 so it was m ore 2 1/3 under. SO the information is there but the contrst in the scene bewteeen a "correct exposure area" and the hadow was 3 stops difference. I know one can increase the contrast in post but I like to do as much in camera it just feels different to light 3 under in realtion to another area to the image than to darken the shadows later.

 

Thats my impression but would love to hear your experience in this and learn some more.

 

Best of all

M

 

Ps: any opnion oin the images would be great input.

M